AP Worldstream ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
DAVOS, Switzerland -- The global economy has grown strong but so has debate over who has benefited and who has lost in the boom, world corporate and government leaders heard at an annual summit Friday.
"Disparities in the distribution of wealth within and among societies are being augmented to a disturbing degree," Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told the World Economic Forum, a six-day gathering of nearly 2,000 people.
Swiss President Adolf Ogi said the state of the global economy is excellent, but he warned of a "massive discontent."
People in former communist countries may be glad for the moment to enjoy their new-found freedom even though they have had to forgo economic and social benefits, Ecevit said.
"But their mood may change as they may have second thoughts about the advantages of market economy in the near future," he added.
Ecevit said violent demonstrations against the World Trade Organization's meeting last month in Seattle "also boded ill for the future of the market economy and globalization in many other countries."
"We cannot afford another Seattle," said Tony Blair, the first British prime minister to address the forum since it began in this Swiss Alpine resort 30 years ago. He said WTO must make its working methods more open to the public so that consensus can be built to support a new round of global trade talks, which he said should be launched this year.
"And to help rebuild momentum, I hope that the U.S., Japan and other developed countries will join the EU in immediately offering the least developed countries duty-free and quota-free access for nearly all goods," Blair added.
WTO Director-General Mike Moore said the organization was serving as the lighting rod for anger about "globalism," which he said "has become the ism to hate."
"We need to work harder" to eliminate injustices in the global trade system, Moore said. "There is enormous anxiety out there in the wealthiest and the poorest countries, and for some reason the WTO is copping the blame for everything that goes wrong in the world."
John J. Sweeney, president of the umbrella U.S. labor organization AFL-CIO, said business was investing more in non-democratic developing countries that developing ones, even if China is excluded.
This has precipitated "a race to the bottom for working people," he said. "I can assure you it will generate an increasingly volatile reaction that will make Seattle look tame.
"The current course cannot be sustained. Fundamental reform is needed."
Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo said "a very peculiar alliance has recently come into being" bringing together forces from the left and right as well as activists on different issues.
This grouping, which he called "globophobic" has the "common endeavor to save the people of developing countries from development."
Many of the some 40,000 protesters at the WTO conference Nov. 30-Dec. 3, 1999, charged that the Geneva-based organization which sets the rules for global trade too often considers the needs of giant multinational corporations at the expense of the poor, the environment and the rights of workers.
Some of the moderate opponents pressed the WTO to consider tougher labor and environmental standards an idea strongly opposed by some businesses in developing countries that depend on cheap labor to make economic gains.
Security always tight is more careful than ever as organizers prepare for protests by groups opposing globalization and power. The Swiss army has been dispatched for the first time to the narrow valley in eastern Switzerland.
Protesters have said they will defy a ban on demonstrations Saturday.
Ogi said those threatening to protest felt as many other ordinary people do "not exactly empowered" in the face of global economic expansion.
"Their feelings have been in evidence in Seattle and, if we are honest with ourselves, we all know that this is not the last we have heard of it," he said. "There is no longer any possibility for economists to escape social responsibility."
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is to arrive later in the day. U.S. President Bill Clinton will fly in on Saturday, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Friday canceled his trip to Davos, ending speculation that he might hold a three-way meeting with Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to discuss peace talks.
Copyright 2000 Associated Press:
